The Government and the Generalitat admit the technical and material difficulties of applying in all its terms the agreement between the PSC and the ERC which allows the transfer to the Tax Agency of all taxes paid in Catalonia, with a formula similar to the Basque and Navarrese concert. Added to these problems are political and parliamentary problems.
This is why the agreement itself provides for a long period to develop it in all its terms. The first step will be the transfer of all personal income taxes paid in Catalonia, as explained this Friday by the Vice President and Head of the Treasury, Maria Jesus Montero.
So far, the government has avoided explaining all these details, both in public statements by its members and in appearances in Congress and the Senate.
The Generalitat explains that the Tax Agency of Catalonia It currently has just over 900 employees, which does not allow it to cover all the taxes collected in the community, in particular VAT, in the medium term. It therefore needs a complex process of technical adaptation and a notable increase in its workforce, which will take several years to extend to all taxes.
The investiture agreement Salvador Illa emphasizes that “the acquisition of these powers will require the transfer of human, material, economic and technological resources” from the State tax administration to the Catalan one. The powers targeted are “the collection, management and payment of all taxes”, as the aforementioned agreement repeats several times.
There are precedents for power transfer pacts extended for years, such as that relating to Cercanías (Rodalíes), negotiated with difficulty for almost a year, or that for the full deployment of the regional police. , which took several years.
The timetable established in the “Catalan Concert” provides that it will be negotiated during the year 2025 so that in 2026 it will be the Generalitat which assumes the management of personal income tax. Sources from both administrations consider excessively optimistic this term.
Concretely, it is emphasized that “in order to implement this new single financing system for Catalonia, it will be necessary to formalize this agreement during the first half of 2025 in the bilateral commission between the Government of the Generalitat and the State in relation to the financing model. In 2025, it will be necessary to promote the agreements reached within the aforementioned commission, through the necessary legislative changes and, where appropriate, they will be transferred to the Joint Commission of Economic and Fiscal Affairs of the State-Generalitat so that they can be approved. “.
That is, before the summer the deal would be finalized and the timetable would be set, and during the rest of the year the development would be agreed.
Multi-year calendar
Everything therefore depends on the evolution of the legislative body in Spain and Catalonia, where there are two minority governments with complex agreements. The only advantage is that both are of the same political sign, although they depend on the votes of the pro-independence parties.
It is expected that this entire first stage will only be used for personal income tax, which makes the transfer of the management of other taxes unthinkable, even before the legal end of the legislaturewhich would be in July 2027 if there is no electoral progress.
The pact states that “the The first tax in which the application of the objectives of the implementation of the new financing model will be advanced will be the personal income tax. The above-mentioned commissions will enter into corresponding agreements to ensure their execution throughout the year 2026.”
From this point on, it will be necessary to bring other taxes such as VAT to negotiation in these commissions, which is more complex and requires many more resources.
This entire schedule refers to the transfer of material, logistics and infrastructure necessary for the development of the agreement. All that remains is the legal question, which the agreement itself establishes as reform of the LOFCA (Organic Law of Autonomous Financing) and another specific transfer of taxes to Catalonia.
This step constitutes one of the greatest difficulties, as it currently requires an absolute majority and questionable parliamentary support. The Government and the Generalitat hope to negotiate these reforms also during the year 2025, within the framework of a multi-party negotiation that requires agreement at the same time with Junts and ERC and that it must follow the same path as a hypothetical regional financing agreement with all the other communities of the common system, that is to say all except the Basque Country and Navarre.
